High Bradfield - History

History

High Bradfield, which was formerly known as kirkton, is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but it may have been one of the 16 hamlets recorded in the manor of Hallam. On the northwest edge of the village, close to the church, is Bailey Hill, an approximately 10.5-metre (34 ft) high man-made conical mound that is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The date and purpose of its construction are unknown, though it has been interpreted as a Saxon fort, a Norman Motte-and-bailey castle, or a place of public village assembly. David Hey says there is no doubt that Bailey Hill is a motte-and-bailey castle calling it "One of the best preserved and most dramatic motte-and-baileys in Yorkshire." Excavations from 1720 revealed squared stones that had been produced by using tools. The eastern and southern flanks of the bailey is enclosed by a 95 metre long curving earthwork while to the west it is protected by steep slopes. About 500 metres (1,600 ft) to the southeast of the village is Castle Hill, a site is marked on old maps as a “supposed Saxon encampment” The site occupies a rocky ridge at the head of a high escarpment partially enclosed by ring work. The date or purpose of construction of this site is also unknown although it has been speculated that it was used a look out post.

The parish church, St Nicholas Church, is a Gothic Perpendicular style church dating from the 1480s. It incorporates elements of an earlier church that may have been built in the 12th century, and it may stand on the site of an Anglo-Saxon place of worship.

The Enclosure Act of the early 19th century altered the appearance of the countryside around High Bradfield as the profusion of stones in the soil resulted in many small fields in the area. Around the same time many people in the Bradfield area were influenced by the Industrial Revolution and moved to nearby Sheffield to improve their standard of living. The Bradfield Parish workhouse was based in High Bradfield between 1759 and 1847, the building is still there today, standing across the road from the Old Horns pub on Towngate, the building was converted into private houses in the 1870s. Thousands of documents relating to the work house were found in a hidden cupboard in one of the houses in the 1950s, these are now in the Bradfield Parish Archives. On Jane Street is the Grade II listed building known as the Old Post Office, built from gritstone with a slate roof in 1835, it was originally an inn called Heaven House or Heaven's Gate and later The Cross Daggers. Later it served as a registry office, vestry and school and latterly as a post office, it is now a private dwelling divided into several flats.